


We're Fine! (Stop Asking)

by Nemainofthewater



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Kidnapping, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Restraints, Self-Sacrifice, Whump, Whumptober 2020, puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:59:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26746264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Oscar blinks, opening his eyes. It’s something of a surprise; he has been avoiding sleeping at any cost, these last few days, using means both magical and mundane. It’s enough of a novelty that it takes him a few moments to realise that something is wrong. That the ache in his head isn’t merely due to the ever-increasing amounts of coffee that he’s been consuming; that the stiffness of his limbs isn’t because he’s fallen asleep at his desk (again). That the darkness surrounding him and the heaviness of his eyes isn’t due to exhaustion, but because there’s a blindfold wrapped around his head, obscuring his vision.
Relationships: Azu & Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde, Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Whumptober 2020, day 1: Waking up Restrained

Oscar blinks, opening his eyes. It’s something of a surprise; he has been avoiding sleeping at any cost, these last few days, using means both magical and mundane. It’s enough of a novelty that it takes him a few moments to realise that something is wrong. That the ache in his head isn’t merely due to the ever-increasing amounts of coffee that he’s been consuming; that the stiffness of his limbs isn’t because he’s fallen asleep at his desk (again). That the darkness surrounding him and the heaviness of his eyes isn’t due to exhaustion, but because there’s a blindfold wrapped around his head, obscuring his vision.

“Wha’…?” he slurs out. It’s far from his usual eloquence but considering that his mouth feels as though a horde of Grizzops have been speeding through it while high on caffeine, he thinks that he can be forgiven.

He shifts, trying to get more comfortable-

-and he freezes when he hears the clattering of something metallic.

There is a sinking feeling deep in his stomach. Carefully, he sits up and the clatter of chains follow him. He feels each wrist and, after a fortifying breathe, each ankle. He manacles are expected but disappointing nonetheless. This is far from his first time being restrained, willingly or not, and he has always managed free himself eventually. This is, however, going to put him extremely behind in his work, and that’s disregarding the (very likely) possibility of LOLOMG dumping another Bag of Holding’s worth of paperwork on him. 

“Fuck,” he says, pushing back the urge to start laughing hysterically.

“Wilde?”

Oscar’s head whips around despite the blindfold, desperately trying to pinpoint where the voice is coming from. Because… he knows that voice.

“Sasha?” he croaks out, silently cursing as he tries to remove the blindfold. His hands are tethered to the ground in front of him; he can remove the scrap of fabric but it takes a lot more out of him than he’s willing to admit, bending over so that he can first reach his head and then fiddling with the tight knots.

Whatever metal his fetters are made out of, it is not light. There is no padding to protect his wrists from the rough edges of the cuffs and whoever had kidnapped him had also confiscated not only his shoes and socks, but also his jacket and waistcoat, leaving him shivering in the dampness of the cell.

Finally, an indeterminable amount of time later, he succeeds and the coarse fabric slides off his face, leaving him squinting against the dim light in the cell that he has somehow found himself in. 

It is Sasha, tethered and confined in her own cell. She isn’t wearing her coat- something that immediately and instinctively strikes Oscar as _wrong_ \- and she’s swaying lightly. She’s managed to get rid of her own blindfold- and really, Oscar would expect nothing less of her- but her pupils are blown wide and she’s moving with a sluggishness that worries him.

“Wilde,” she repeats, trying to stand only to be stopped by her own chains. She tries to reach into her absent coat, presumable for her lockpicks, and is perplexed by the fact that she’s not wearing it.

Oscar coughs lightly, trying to clear his throat enough for coherent speech.

“I’m here, Sasha,” he finally manages to say. “Wherever here is. Don’t try to move; I’m afraid that we’re in a bit of a _bind._ ”

Sasha blinks at him for one long moment, and then, just as Oscar is worried that whatever’s affecting her is more dangerous than he had thought, she smiles at him. A small smile, just a twitch of her lips, but far more than he would have expected from her toward him even if they hadn’t both been kidnapped.

“I dunno Wilde,” she raps back at him, leaving her chains for the moment and collapsing back against the floor. “It’s en-chain-ting to see you here. Get it? ‘cus we’re in chains.”

The pun truly isn’t funny, but Oscar laughs nonetheless. Because Sasha is looking at him for approval and what else is there to do, truly, in this cell?

“You’re getting better at those, Sasha,” he says once he manages to catch his breath.

“Really?”

“Most definitely,” he assures her, fighting to stay blithe and unworried, fighting not to show his concerns on his face. Because why would anyone take Sasha and him both? Himself; well, when one’s a Meritocratic operative the possibility of being kidnapped is par for the course. Sasha also has her fair share of enemies and, despite the recent incarceration of her uncle, Oscar doesn’t doubt that some remain with both the power and the motive to kidnap her. But both of them together?

The only reason that Oscar can think of is that their kidnappers, whoever they are, are hoping to use them as leverage against each other.

Oscar tries to draw his walls up, to remind himself of his training. To surround himself in a wall of icy resolve.

But he can’t.

Sasha, damn her, has managed to creep past his shields. Well she would, wouldn’t she, talented rogue that she is.

“Wilde?” Sasha asks after a moment. “Where- what’s going on?” She scowls. “M’head hurts and I don’t remember how I got here. The last thing I remember… the last thing I remember is breakfast outside the glassed factory.”

“I don’t remember anything beyond that point either,” Oscar says. Even that is fuzzy if he’s being honest and trying to recall more makes his head pound painfully. That and the fact that his magic feels stifled and slow and utterly out of reach makes him fear that he has also been drugged.

“They must have got us there,” Sasha says, chewing her lip anxiously as she tries to remember. “They must have…” she trails off suddenly, her already pale skin losing even more colour.

“What is it?” Oscar asks. “Have you remembered something?”

Sasha gulps.

“ _Azu_ ,” she says. “If that was when they got us… then Azu was with us.”


	2. Chapter 2

Azu fights them. She fights them with all of her strength and the blessing of her goddess and that is still not enough. She falls under an onslaught of a dozen fighters, alone and afraid and ashamed that she isn’t enough. She falls still trying to get to Sasha and Wilde, unconscious and helpless in the mercenaries’ (Lads and/or blokes? Or something else?) arms. Trying to protect them, trying to heal them.

She fails.

#

Azu groans and shivers, trying to curl more tightly around herself. It’s cold and damp where she’s lying, and she does not like it. It was true that growing up in the mountains of Kenya she had known cold before, but on those nights her family had slept together in a large pile in their parent’s room, and all she can remember about those nights were warmth and safety. In any case, the cold nights in Kenya are nothing like the cold that’s surrounding her at this moment.

No, this cold is insidious and all-encompassing and is creeping into her bones and joints and, she realises in surprise, that she’s shivering. She stretches out a hand, searching for her blankets so that she can pull them over herself as a shield from the cold- but she can’t find them.

There’s also something stopping her hand from wandering further, something that tugs and pinches at her wrist and she frowns. What…?

Azu opens her eyes and reality crashes down upon her.

She tries to sit up with a frantic cry on her lips only to be abruptly dragged down by the chains on her wrists and ankles. For one long moment she struggles, desperately trying to break free, trying to escape. Finally she has to admit defeat, chest heaving and wrists chafed; she’s not going to be able to escape using brute force.

A deep part of her soul pulses in comfort, Aphrodite reaching out to her and reassuring her of her presence. Her support. The same sense of love and belonging that Azu has cradled close to her heart since the day that gazed upon the Priestess of Aphrodite who had come to her village and known that her Destiny was to serve her goddess.

And Azu calms. Because no matter how bad things have got, Aphrodite has never let her down. And she never will.

“You’re awake,” a voice intones, and Azu’s head jerks over to the door- barred and locked- to see a cloaked figure. The figure isn’t overly tall- though Azu’s sense of height is skewed despite her years living amongst smaller folk- and the dark hood obscure’s its face so that despite her superior orcish vision all she can see is shadows. No matter how hard she squints she can’t tell whether the cloak hides feet or tentacles.

“I am,” Azu says, gathering her courage and here faith and staring to emit a light pink glow. Though her weapons and her armour have been stripped from her, she is far from defenceless. “What do you want? Why have you taken me? Where are my frien- companions?”

The figure tilts its head. “Take a closer look,” it says. Azu’s heart clenches and sinks, her breath catching in her throat.

“What-”

“ _Look._ ”

And Azu does. Her eyes drift past the cloaked figure and look.

Wilde and Sasha are across the corridor, slumped in their own cells, unmoving. Sasha is still enough that for one heart-wrenching moment Azu thinks that she’s _dead_ (again, not again), but then she notices the chains on both of them; what use would there be in chaining up a dead person? None.

_Unless Sasha died after they chained her,_ a voice in her head whispers, but she pushes it back. She won’t lose hope. Not yet.

Wilde… Wilde looks bad. He’s curled in on himself, protecting his side, and his curly hair is matted and covered in something dark on one side of his head. Azu has a sinking suspicion that it’s blood. Even as she watches, Wilde takes several, painful-sounding coughs, more dark liquid dribbling out of his mouth.

“What did you do to them?” she snarls, her teeth flashing. She surges forward and is once again stopped short by the chains. She struggles against them for another moment before she admits defeat, falling back and panting in exhaustion. The cloaked figure radiates amusement, despite its lack of recognisable features, and she longs to be free, to have her great axe in hand so that she could destroy this abomination and help her friends.

“The mercenaries that I hired were perhaps a little _overzealous_ when bringing them in,” the figure says smoothly. “One of the problems that comes with associating with mercenaries, I suppose. No finesse.”

“Let me heal them,” Azu says, ignoring the monologue, or the insult, or whatever the hell the cloak figure was saying.

“Heal them? Why should I let you do that? They’re much more agreeable like this. So much less of a security risk.”

“ _Please._ ”

“And what would you do in exchange?” The figure glides closer. The back of Azu’s neck prickles with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.

Azu takes a deep breath.

“Anything,” she says.

The figure chuckles, low and ominous. “How marvellous. Shall we make a bargain, beloved of Aphrodite? You may heal you friends-”

“Yes,” Azu interrupts. Sasha still hasn’t moved. Wilde is coughing again and the movement has reopened the wound on his head.

“Let me finish, Paladin. You may heal your friends and in return-” finally, the folds of its cloak part and a pale hand exits its fold. Azu focus, however, is on the thing that it’s holding. Small and unassuming, it could be mistaken for a plain bracelet, but Azu knows what it is. She’s seen them before. It’s a magic suppressing cuff.

It’s a choice. Her connection with her goddess… or her friends’ lives.

“-and in return,” the figure said, soaking in her horror, “in return, Paladin, you wear _this._ ”

It’s no choice at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for whumptober day 2: Kidnapped
> 
> This chapter originally was originally based on the prompt 'collars' and had Azu forced to wear a magic suppressing collar. A kindly anon on Tumblr pointed out that there were some unfortunate cultural implications when taking into account that Azu is a Black woman; I have therefore changed the chapter so that it's a magic suppressing cuff instead. I didn't even think of the possible connotations, which definitely shows that I have a huge blind spot! Thank you again to the anon.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I outlined this but I also don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it as things are getting busy! Fingers crossed?
> 
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


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